You can only give away what you have ... If you have love, you can give it. If you don't have it, you don't have it to give.

I was slowly learning that love did not mean holding on, which I had always thought, but rather letting go.

Genuine love is between two people who know they are already complete. Genuine love is based on a new paradigm in which both partners are committed to the celebration of each other and their loved ones.

True independence is not based on fear. It contains within it an ability to be close to others, coupled with a choice to be free and autonomous.

When any problem occurs, you have two choices: you can get upset about it, or you can simply figure out what needs to be done. Getting upset has a seductive quality to it; there is rich drama to be had there. The cost is that there is no happiness to be had. Happiness opens up when you drop the drama and start looking for what needs to be done. Any relationship improves when both people shift from complaints to statements of what they want.

There is the relationship between the two of you as real people, and there is the relationship between the two shadows. The shadow is the part of us we do not know about. It is the hidden repository of all our old feelings and patterns. You come into the relationship bringing a shadow with you, as does the other person. If you and the other person do not look into what these shadows contain, your relationship will be between two shadows instead of the two of you as real people.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

While many people are trying to be in tune with infinite, what they really are is in tune with the indefinite.

Peace cannot be built on the foundations of fear.

When you're Happy for No Reason, you bring happiness to your outer experiences rather than trying to extract happiness from them. You don't need to manipulate the world around you to try to make yourself happy. You live from happiness, rather than for happiness.

Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.

Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it—that you are it.

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

It is not your job to make something happen—Universal Forces are in place for all of that. Your work is to simply determine what you want.

If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.

Of what is the body made? It is made of emptiness and rhythm. At the ultimate heart of the body, at the heart of the world, there is no solidity. Once again, there is only the dance.

Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss.

There is abundance of opportunity for the man who will go with the tide, instead of trying to swim against it.

You get what you intend to create by being in harmony with the power of intention, which is responsible for all of creation.

It soon becomes obvious that I have received more from the world than I’ve given, or could ever return.

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.

For us, nature’s final accomplishment is contemplation, becoming aware, and a way of living in harmony with nature.

You are in God. God is in you. There is no separation, there never was and there never will be.

All life is circulation.

The world is random and unpredictable, which means that it is close to impossible to outline exactly what your next best move is. But you can explore it—by doing and trying. Just make sure you don’t go all in before you’ve figured out that it works.

People around you, constantly under the pull of their emotions, change their ideas by the day or by the hour, depending on their mood. You must never assume that what people say or do in a particular moment is a statement of their permanent desires.

You can’t take care of anyone else unless you first take care of yourself. 

Taking care is one way to show your love. Another way is letting people take good care of you when you need it.

We need to help people to discover the true meaning of love. Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence.

A no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no “they lived happily ever after,” but it’s more like “they worked happily ever after.